Donation-coder | Technology Blog

35 New Donation Coder Applications

January 6th, 2009

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New Apps for the New Year (NANY) is the motto of the Nany Challenge over at Donation Coder. It’s already the second year of the challenge and lots of new software programs have been released during that challenge. To be precise: 35 new and free software programs have been released which more than doubled the count of last year. Each application can be downloaded right away from the Donation Coder website and works without registration or other inconveniences.

We have already covered two of the applications and would like to recommend a few more that might be interesting to try out. Comparer is a file comparison tool that can compare (among other things) all file properties. File Replicator is another interesting program. It can search for a certain file in a selected folder and replace that file with another one. Think of updating files that reside in multiple locations on the computer’s hard drive.

Panic Button

January 3rd, 2009

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A Panic Button or Boss Key is a software program that will hide certain visible elements on the computer screen when it is pressed. The software applications usually hide windows and programs that are running at the moment the panic button is pressed.

Dad’s Around is a panic button software that was created as a contribution to the Donation Coder NANY 2009 programming challenge. The software program is supplied in 7z format which means that a unpacker supporting that format is needed. The software itself is portable and can be run from any location without installation.

It provides access to four options that can be activated with the [Windows Z] key by default. The options can be configured by right-clicking the system tray icon after execution. The possibilities are to silence WAVE audio, kill the actual foreground process, minimize all windows and show a black screen. Each option can be activated or deactivated separately.

Copy Command Line Outputs Directly To The Clipboard

December 2nd, 2008

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If you regularly save command line output into text files to process it further you might like a solution that copies the output directly to the clipboard to be able to process it faster. One of the best places to find tiny but useful applications is the Donation Coder forum and ClipCopy, the tool to copy command line output directly to the clipboard, was discovered there as well.

ClipCopy is a portable software for the command line that can easily be used to copy output directly to the Windows clipboard. The easiest way to use the software is by appending it to the command issued. To copy the output with Clipcopy one would simply use the command dir | clipcopy

The output size is not limited which means that it can copy large amounts of data to the Windows clipboard easily. The command will not echo the dir command in the command line. Clipcopy provides an option to do both. This is done by appending the -e parameter to the command. The full command would be dir | clipcopy -e for that.

Custom Desktop Logo

October 22nd, 2008

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Eric Wong is a regular software contributor and regular at the Donation Coder forum. His latest software program is called Custom Desktop Logo which is another interesting piece of software. It can be used to display a permanent logo on the computer desktop which could be great for public computers or during presentations.

Custom Desktop Logo is a portable software that will load a default logo at startup which is always on top in the right lower corner of the computer desktop. The program’s options provide means of moving the desktop logo on the computer screen and even offer multi-monitor display modes in case more than one monitor is connected to the computer. This includes virtual monitors on one computer in case the user makes use of those as well.

It is possible to change the Z-level of the logo from always on top to normal and always on bottom behavior in case that is preferred. Images can be scaled if that is needed. Interestingly enough static and animated images are supported.

Screen Capture Software Screenshot Captor

October 12th, 2008

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MWSnap was the program of choice for a long time to create screenshots of software programs to post at this website. It was small, hotkey driven and provided a fast and efficient way of creating screenshots. It had some limitations though like no image editing options at all. It is sometimes appropriate to highlight the important part of a screenshot which could not be done with MWSnap.

Screenshot Captor by Donation Coder Mouser is another screen capture software and it feels like comparing Wordpad with Microsoft Office Word. Screenshot Captor was recently released in a new version and it provides functions that many users will find attractive and useful.

It obviously supports capturing various parts of the computer screen like program windows, selected regions, fixed sized regions, the entire screen but also scrolling windows and objects which is one of the additions in the new version.

Windows Extractor

October 6th, 2008

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Another interesting Windows software application came up in the Donation Coder forum the other day. A user was asking for an application to maximize part of a window or control to fullscreen with the option to return it to its initial position later on.

Eric Wong who already contributed quite a few applications mentioned his software program Windows Extractor which can be used to easily extract controls, elements and windows from the parent application and provide access to them in their own window which can either be displayed in fullscreen right away or the default size which allows for resizing and moving the extracted window contents.

Windows Extractor offers some interesting applications. It is for instance possible to extract videos out of websites and play them in their own window. Even more interesting is the option to move windows and controls out of applications.